Great Barrier Reef 鈥榥ot on danger list鈥
Print Edition
UNESCO said yesterday its World Heritage Committee had decided not to place the Great Barrier Reef on its list of sites “in danger” despite concern over coral bleaching.
A WHC spokeswoman said the committee, which is meeting in Poland, had made the decision late on Wednesday and expressed “deep concern” over two years of back-to-back mass coral bleaching that aerial surveys found had affected some two-thirds of the World Heritage-listed site. The bleaching is the result of warming sea temperatures linked to climate change.
In reaching its decision, the committee noted Australian attempts to preserve the largest living structure on Earth under its Reef 2050 Plan and did not find it necessary to place the site on its danger list, spokeswoman Anika Paliszewska said, despite fears on whether conservation targets can be met.
WHC lauded “major efforts deployed by all those involved” in the Australian preservation plan but “strongly encourages (Australia) to step up efforts to ensure that medium and long-term objectives fixed by the plan are met, which is essential for the global resilience” of the reef.
In a draft report to the WHC last month, UNESCO said climate change remained the most significant threat to the future of the coral expanse that stretches for 2,300 kilometers and criticized Australia for slow progress towards achieving water quality targets.
The reef is notably threatened by a proliferation of crown-of-thorns starfish, a coral predator that has a devastating impact on coral reef ecosystems.
A Deloitte Access Economics report commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation last month stated that the site is an asset worth US$42 billion, supporting 64,000 jobs and as an ecosystem and economic driver is “too big to fail.”
That report was the first time the economic and social value of the reef — which is bigger than Britain, Switzerland and the Netherlands combined — had been calculated.
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